Gemma cracked open the door and saw a head with short, cottony dark hair, a fine forehead with blue-gray eyes and hash marks of indigo shooting out from the center. She opened the door further and saw Deputy Jay Triplett waiting on the landing. Only he didn’t look like a deputy at all dressed in his plaid sports shirt and pair of jeans ironed with a light crease. He didn’t look like a deputy at all with the bouquet of sunflowers and larkspur clasped in his left fist, held so fast that he might have been choking them, leaves and blossoms lolling sideways from such an ordeal.
“Hi,” he said, somewhat sheepishly.
“Hi back,” she said.
“I called the museum, but Mabel—”
She laughed. “I know. Mabel told you I couldn’t talk because I was too busy stringing guitars.”
“That’s exactly right. I . . . well, I . . . ” He jutted the flowers forward as if he only remembered them this instant. “These are for you.”
“Thank you.”
She took them and they flopped outward in a circle over her fist. “I’ll put them in water or something.” She started to turn away.
He put out a hand to stop her. “Wait.”
“What is it?”
“I . . . well, I . . . ” And then Deputy Triplett started to laugh, his confidence seeming to return in a rush. “I was having coffee at the Cramalot and Alva T. told me. About you being married to Nathan.”
“Did she?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, Miss Franklin. I didn’t know Nathan well. But I saw him playing baseball a time or two. I just wanted to come by and let you know that I offer my sympathy. Until this week, none of us around here knew that you were going through such a difficult time. We’re all glad you came to Ash Hollow.”
Gemma’s hand with the ring came up against the Sissels doorjamb and she leaned on it, stretching her arm, comfortable. “How is Fred doing?”
“Fred?”
“Your dog.”
“Fred. Oh, he’s fine. Yes. Very fine. He’s out in the truck right now.”
“Thank you for offering your sympathy about Nathan, Deputy Triplett. It means a lot to me.”
“I . . . was thinking something else, too. I was thinking, since I’m the one who arrested you, I probably ought to take responsibility for you because you’re stuck here after your car’s finished and you’re ready to leave. I thought maybe I could help you escape for a while. Maybe take you to a movie or something. Get a banana split over in Oshkosh.”
“I don’t know about that,” she told him with sudden, great care. “I probably won’t be much fun. I don’t. . .
Well, I loved Nathan very much. It’s going to be a long time before I’m ready to see somebody again.”
“I understand that,” he said. “I know grieving for someone you love takes a long time. But Fred and I were thinking that maybe you could use a friend.”
Gemma couldn’t help herself. She grinned. “Has any-body ever told you you’re different without your guns and your handcuffs?”
“Yeah.” His one abrupt laugh came from way deep in his chest. “People say that all the time.”
With her hand still on the doorjamb, Gemma turned back to her daughter. “I’d like to go,” she said, with her head turned away. “But Paisley isn’t doing very well and I’d better not leave her.”
“I’ve got a niece who lives in Oshkosh. My sister’s lit-tle girl. Madeleine. She’s five and she lives with about three hundred Barbies. Maybe we could go there for a visit, and Paisley could come with us.”
Gemma thought about it. “Okay. Okay. That sounds fine. Let me get our things.”
Paisley’s Barbie didn’t talk. It walked across the stage in the new Barbie fashion-show boutique, wore hot-pink clothes with hot-pink sneakers, and carried a hot-pink cell phone. But it never said a word. Madeleine’s Barbies did all the talking.
“Thank you for letting us come over,” Gemma told Jay Triplett’s sister. “She’s having a good time. She’s just . . . angry with me right now.”
“Yeah, I can see that.”
“It’s been a tough couple of months.”
“If you two want to sneak away for an hour or so, Paisley would be okay here,” Jay’s lively sister volunteered. “I sure don’t mind her staying.”
Gemma leaned forward and peered close at her eyes. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to set your brother up or something.”
“Nope. Not this time,” she said. “He’s told me all about you and everything you’ve been through. He told me he wanted to be a gentle and careful friend.” The woman chuckled, and Gemma couldn’t be sure whether she was teasing or not. “He came right at me with that. He knows me too well. He knows I’ve been trying to set him up ever since the 1994 Lewellen Rural High School Cornhusker Ball.”
In the end, when they snuck away, they snuck away to the Ash Hollow Cemetery. It was close to town and quiet, with footpaths for walking, a view of the river for miles, and birds fluttering among the sparse gathering of trees.
Gemma didn’t know when she’d get back to this precious place again. She told Jay she probably wouldn’t have another chance to visit Nathan’s grave before she and Paisley left town.
“You don’t have to leave town, you know. There’s plenty of folks in this town that’d like to see you stick around. Alva T., for one. She’s doubled her business with her meat loaf special, and I don’t know where she’ll find another waitress after you’re gone.”
“She’ll find somebody.” Gemma crossed her arms and held onto opposite elbows as they walked. “Good waitresses are a dime a dozen.”
“Not in this town, they aren’t.”
“They are. You’ll see.”
They walked along pleasantly, stride to stride, hip to hip. He slipped his jacket off and settled it over her shoulders. “You’re getting goose bumps.” Then he pointed toward the north edge of the burial ground where the plots seemed to be larger.
“My grandmother’s over there. My great-grand-mother, too.”
“You lived here a long time?”
“All my life.”
She pointed in the opposite direction, the direction of the North Platte. “Nathan’s over there.”
“That’s a good spot. Overlooking the river.”
“Yes.”
“Come see this. More local history.”
He gestured toward a marker that read, ‘Rachel E. Pattison. Aged 18. June 19 1849.’ A panel of glass lay over the native sandstone to protect the weathered lettering.
“This is the oldest grave here. She’d been married two months before her husband brought her out on the trail. She died of cholera, is what people say.”
“They were so brave on the Oregon Trail. Just trusting, just coming, the way they did.”
Jay took her hand and led her around a stand of crumbling granite spires, covered with lichen. “All of these graves are old. All of them are folks who decided to give up on the trail and homestead here instead. I’ll bet you one of those ladies buried there is the one who transplanted Mrs. Bartling’s roses.”
Beyond the decaying spires, Gemma could see the silhouette of Care Goodsell’s wheelbarrow, parked upright and waiting, empty, the rake propped beside it in the middle of a vacant plot.
“Oh, he’s left it out. That’s odd.” As she walked toward the old cart, a butterfly flickered past her shoulder, alighted on the wheelbarrow’s metal rim. It settled, furled and unfurled it wings, a mosaic of blues and browns mirrored one against the other, the same ethereal pattern as a stained-glass window. “This is Care Goodsell’s wheelbarrow. Look.”
“Who?” Jay Triplett furrowed his eyebrows.
“Care Goodsell.”
“Never heard of him.”
“Well, you must have. He’s the gardener here. He goes all over the place toting this wheelbarrow. Last time we were here, he even gave Paisley a ride. Wanted to give me one, but I wouldn’t let him.”
“Gemma?” Jay was still looking at her strangel
y. “Do you remember Lon Johnson? One of the fellows who plays checkers with Orvin at the museum?”
“Of course I do.”
“Well, he’s the gardener here.”
“He is?”
“He’s the only gardener here. There isn’t anybody else.”
“No?”
“This wheelbarrow hasn’t been moved for years. No body uses it anymore.” Jay pointed to the ground. Smartweed and grama grass had entangled the lone wheel, the two shafts. He was right. This contraption hadn’t gone anywhere last week, last month, last year.
Gemma touched the wheelbarrow, its rusted dents and hollows and for the moment didn’t know what to feel. But something loving and powerful, electric and satisfying, touched itself back into her hand.
Before he had died, Gemma’s daddy had always told her that, if she heard from God, she wouldn’t doubt it. She might feel fear. And she might feel awe, perhaps. But never doubt. Never doubt, when she found Him.
She did not doubt now.
You knew about me being lonely, didn’t you?
You sent us an angel, didn’t you, because you knew this was the place we would need one the most?
For a long time she stood beside Jay Triplett and knew joy. For a long time she waited, counting the flushed colors in the sky, smelling the strong smell of the earth and the blond, drying grass. She heard the chirp of a grasshopper beside her feet and thought it beautiful.
“We ought to go,” he said at last.
Gemma made her way around the wheelbarrow. “I know. I don’t want to leave Paisley too—” She stepped on something and twisted her ankle. She stumbled forward. “Ouch.”
“Watch out.”
“What was that? What did I step on?”
“I don’t know.”
Gemma knelt and parted the grass. She found it. A headstone hidden among tall weeds and rockfall. “I stepped on this.”
“Are you okay?”
“If Lon Johnson is the gardener around this place, I’m going to tell him he’s missed a plot. He ought to be taking better care of this one.” She dug deeper through the grama grass. “It’s double. There are two of them here.”
“Hm-mmm.”
“Why are you being so quiet, Jay?”
“No reason, I guess. I feel spooky when I get around those graves. Those are two of the saddest graves in Garden County.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Just read them,” he said.
The light had gotten so dim by now that Gemma had to kneel closer, to squint past her nose to see. She read the names aloud. “Sybil Palmer. Jacob Palmer, Sr. Died January 3, 1991.” Crouched in the grass on all fours, she had to turn her chin to her shoulder blade so she could see Jay. “They both died on the same day.”
“They did.”
“What happened?”
He shook his head. “Everybody’s been talking about it down at the sheriff’s office for years. I’ve never been the type to discuss things.”
“Me neither.”
“Although I sure don’t know why Johnson isn’t mowing the grass.”
“Were they in an accident or something?”
“No.”
The single granite marker was broad enough to identify both souls. Flecks of feldspar and mica gilded the width of the stone. One half, Sybil’s half, was beautifully ornate, engraved with the face of a hovering angel. The other half, Mr. Palmer’s half, was brutally simple. A name. A birthday for each. A matching date of death. January 3, 1991. Nothing more.
“I wish you’d tell me what happened.”
“I told you. I’m not the sort of person to talk.”
But she knew it suddenly. She didn’t have to ask any-more. “He killed her, didn’t he? He killed her and then he killed himself. I can tell by the stone.”
“If you don’t come now, Gemma, they’re going to call the sheriff out to look for us.”
She didn’t budge. “You can’t distract me from this. When they call the sheriff out to look for somebody, they call you.”
He shrugged.
“Am I right about them? Did it happen the way I said?”
He nodded. “Of course you are. You’ve got the whole thing figured, just the way it happened. All except for the eleven-year-old son they both left behind.”
“The eleven-year-old—?”
She froze, felt her pulse thudding high in her chest.
She read the man’s name again. Jacob Palmer, Sr. And calculated the dates, the years, in her head.
“Jay.”
A rush of certainty poured through her. Gemma reached for the wheelbarrow as if she might use it to pull herself up. “Thank you,” she whispered to the wheel barrow, knowing with all certainty that Care Goodsell could hear. “Thank you.”
Jay Triplett gave her a hand instead. “This child,” she asked, her voice scarcely audible as she rose. “Was he a boy?”
“Yes.”
“Jacob, Jr.?”
“I think so.”
“We have to go back, Jay. We have to go back now.”
Chapter Twnety-Four
On the huge glass window at The Cramalot Inn, Alva had taped a large yellow sign that read “Help Wanted. Dependable Waitress Needed. Start immediately. Must be able to pour coffee with a smile.”
Gemma’s Toyota was already packed. The huge bear lay in the rear seat beside the suitcase, soaking up sun.
“Well,” Alva said, clapping her hands in front of her apron, trying to pretend like it was just any other day. She bent down to Paisley. “You be good for your mother, will you? And make her promise to write.”
Paisley nodded, but didn’t say a word.
“Make her promise to bring you back to see us.”
Paisley nodded, but said nothing.
Alva straightened and nodded her chin at Gemma. “You two headed out right now?”
“Almost.” Gemma glanced around the Cramalot one last time. “I’ve only got a couple more things to do. I’ve got to stop at the museum and work one more hour for Mabel Perkins.”
“One more hour? She wouldn’t let you off from that? That woman!”
“I’m taking Paisley with me so we can leave from there. I’ve got to make one phone call from here. I’ve already told everybody good-bye. Even Orvin Kornruff. You and Charlene and Harvey are the last ones.”
“We are?”
“Yes. Thank you for trusting me enough to give me this job, Alva.”
“Have you told Mrs. Bartling good-bye, Gemma?”
“Yes, we have. When we left her house. It’s too difficult, going back again, for all of us, even Mrs. Bartling. She doesn’t want us around, Alva. What’s done is done.”
“Oh sweetie.”
“Don’t, Alva. I’ll just. . .” Gemma started back toward the grill.
The old black telephone hung on the wall in the Cramalot kitchen beside the cook’s vast assortment of Revere Ware pots and pans. Just when Gemma figured it was safe to make her phone call, Harvey decided to sauté vegetables, probably for tomorrow’s Soup of the Day. “Harvey,” Gemma whispered as he reached for a skillet hanging right over her head, clanging it against a saucepan like a timpani drum. She held her right ear with her finger. “Could you please? I’m making a call. Long-distance.”
“Gemma’s making a call, long-distance!” he sang out like a naughty little brother and thumped his fry pan a little harder. “You’d better leave your money by the phone.”
“I always do that.” She swatted at the strings of his chef’s apron as he sauntered by. But secretly she was thankful he’d said something about leaving money. She’d never had any reason to learn how to make interstate calls from The Cramalot Inn. Ever since she’d arrived in Ash Hollow, there hadn’t been anybody out of town Gemma wanted to talk to.
She peered down at the phone number on the perfect white square of paper, one of the scraps they kept within reaching distance—along with those short yellow pencils—at the Garden County Library. A Wyoming nu
mber she’d jotted from the People Finder. Jacob Palmer, Jr. In Jackson Hole.
She’d spent too much time talking to Harvey. She’d waited too long between digits and the line had gone dead. Gemma started over again, punching in the 307 area code and then the rest of the number. The little bell came on the other end of the line, the whirr of distance, the recording that said sweetly, “The time is ten-forty-nine where you are calling.”
On the other end, it began to ring. Gemma closed her eyes and prayed. Please. Please.
A woman’s voice answered. “Hello?”
“Hello,” Gemma said back.
Oh, my goodness. She hadn’t thought it through any further than this. She had absolutely no idea what she should say.
“Hello?” the woman repeated, this time a question.
Gemma couldn’t be sure. Harvey kept banging pots and pans around. She thought she might hear a baby. “Is Jacob there?” She plugged her ear with her finger again.
A pause. “Well, no.” Soft, confused, with an inflection on the end that meant southern. “He works during the day.”
“Oh. Well, I—” Gemma was stumbling over words just as badly as Jay Triplett. “You probably want to know who this is. I’m . . . I’m family. I think.”
Gemma was right. She did hear a baby crying. The woman must have picked up an infant because Gemma heard magnified sounds of whimpering, close to the ear piece.
“Your husband’s name? Did he ever go by something different? Did he ever go by Jacob Bartling?”
“No. I don’t . . . ” The woman seemed to think for a moment, and Gemma’s hopes went up. But the final answer, when it came, dashed them again. “No. Not to my knowledge. What on earth is this?”
“Are his parents living? Can you tell me something about that?”
The baby started crying louder. “Who did you say this is?”
“Are Jacob’s blood parents living, or are they gone?”
The voice said, “I’m sorry,” and sounded like she meant it. “These are not the sort of questions I feel comfortable answering over the phone.”
Gemma gave up. This wasn’t working. She sighed, defeated. “Will you tell him something? Just say that Nathan has died and that a family member thought he should know. Will you say that?”
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